"The Bully Pulpit," for Sure!

I did finish reading this book on my Kindle. This is the only way to read really thick and "heavy" books, in my view. I started "Team of Rival," same author, in print a couple of time, never got it done. When I started reading it on my Kindle, I just kept plugging away, and I enjoyed it very much, kept right on going to the end.

I'm expecting the same thing here. I've started other Teddy Roosevelt bios in print, and never finished. This one is outstanding, and I'm still looking forward to picking it up, each evening, and moving forward.

Doris has combined three interesting "people" sets for this book - she spend nine years on it as I recall - Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the journalists at McClure Magazine - the infamous "muckrackers." Teddy draws us into reading the book. His relationship, over the years with WHT makes it interesting. By reading about this "Curious Duo" we also read the really important stuff - that we probably wouldn't, otherwise - the fantastic contribution to our society of this intriguing set of journalists assembled by S.S. McClure at his magazine; including Ida B. Tarbull and William Allen White.

I spent 15 years, not too long ago, living in Emporia, Kansas, William Allen White's hometown (he was the newspaper editor there at the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century), as a university professor. His name related to this book most likely drew me in, as well. I heard a lot about William Allen White, and I really wanted to see Doris Kearns Goodwin's take on him, I will admit.

ANOTHER RATIONAL

The times about which this book is written are so much like our present times, it is eerie! Income inequality growing. Societal issues dividing the populace. Control of business, government, and many other aspects of live in only a few hands. Teddy and his colleagues changed it then with the Progressive Movement. Is it possible for someone to step forward, today, to do the same?